The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making. If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one-vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs. Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it. If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains.

They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.

Not it's not. It clarifies multiple times. "Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism". He just said that CPU power is the consenus mechanism and any rules can be decided with it.

I'm happy they come here to learn the truth and happy to even upvote these questions. We always had the advantage of just being able to say the way things are, because we're on the side of truth and we don't need lies, censorship and propaganda to get a point across. Contrary to people such as /u/nullc who (ab)use their intelligence to spread eloquent sounding misinfo and manipulate their followers with falsehoods. (And I'm extremely happy miners turn out to not be brainwashable either.) That's why I love this sub.

(And I'm extremely happy miners turn out to not be brainwashable either.)

Given that SegWit will change the fee landscape to the detriment of miners, there is ~25..30% of hash power that might well be brainwashed ...

I am not sure about the dynamics either but I think if you are honest, you'd likely also conclude that this area needs a lot more careful (open, uncensored and considerate!) thought and that is is way too premature as a miner to signal SegWit now.

Note: I do like parts of SegWit. As solely a non-hodling user not concerned about chain security, I of course like all stuff you can build on top of the chain and I don't care about miners getting paid by fees. LN, LN, LN. As a hodler, I have a different opinion. I see the centralization risk of huge full nodes to some extend (yes), but I also see the risk of diminishing on-chain security due to diminishing fees.

But exactly this main economic part of SegWit, the intended shift of on-chain to LN goes along with a shift of on-chain fees to LN hub fees.

We never had a proper discussion about this, just lots and lots of propaganda.

Yes exactly, and it would be great if we would (have some great discussions). Does promoting off-chain risk the long term viability of Bitcoin because of diminishing on-chain tx fees? In my opinion, yes. But Core just blocking on-chain outright, is absolutely terrible terrible decision making.

I think the market will find a good equilibrium between the two, eventually. After all, even with a high-throughput settlement network built on top of bitcoin, there are always going to be cases where you have to move bitcoin "for real" on the blockchain. I have a feeling that no second-layer solution will be perfect, so there will always be a measure of risk with their use which will ensure that demand for "blockchain transactions" remains high.

Anyway, for something as complicated as SW + LN, I would like to see a working prototype before the protocol is taken down that path. The blocksize increase is simply more urgent and the ecosystem cannot wait any longer.

Here's the thing Oliver. Do you truly understand the power of setting block size limit? You are a self proclaimed anarchist, right? Why would you give any kind of power to anyone? Giving power to set block size limit to miner is the same as giving power to the government to regulate who can or cannot run a bank (e.g minimum required capital), especially since running a full node means being your own bank. You are just substituting one form of authority for another

Even the fact that Satoshi gives power to the miner over transaction ordering is precisely because He has no other options.

You know I'm talking about acceptance depth. Take a look at majority BU nodes. Most of them are not setting them up to 99999. That means if I somehow support BU I will be on the same chain with the people who depend on the miner to set their block size. That means most likely I will be forked away. Why should I wait until then when I can fork right now?

es multiple times. "Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism". He just said that CPU power

look i dont think we should blindly take bits an pieces out a whitepaper and treat it like bible passages without trying to consider it in the real world. That paragraph was taken from the days, when all nodes were mining nodes. There were no mining pools or asics.

I try to abstract what bitcoin is and think of it from a higher level.

The bitcoin business logic, is implemented all full nodes, they govern the definition of a valid blockchain. However there can be many valid blockchains, therefore proof of work is used to allow nodes to converge on a single valid blockchain ( that is least likely to be manipulated to serve an individuals interests ).

At any moment in time, with or without the permission of miners, someone can release a new version client, which changes the logic. This will result in a fork of the chain with a new set of miners helping a separate network converge to a single block-chain based on the new consensus rules. You cant say this is not possible, because for a long time we considered doing this here in this sub.

The question is which one is bitcoin? The paper doesn't really deal with this use case and at the end of the day, the people who have the biggest influence in the name of the two coins will be the exchanges that support both coins and the payment processors like bitpay.

Personally i think this argument is pointless, (tomato tamato ). When the fork occurs there will be two coins A and B. One will be worth more than and the one that is worth less will eventually fade away, then the one that remains can be colloquially called 'bitcoin'

And I repeat (or you can read OP again). Miners decide chain validity for chains using the same consensus rules. With the BU hardfork, it's no longer the same consensus rules. I'm not contradicting myself.

with this line "Deciding which chain is Bitcoin is deciding which transactions are valid." you are backing up completely what Olivier has been trying to tell you (while arguing against him and trying to tell him he's wrong).

with the other lines you contradict what you're saying about segwit (it turns bitcoin into an 'altcoin' as it changes the consensus rules),

you say consensus rule changes = altcoin.

you say segwit changes consensus.

you say segwit/core will not be an altcoin.

while saying you're not contradicting yourself, I can't make it any clearer, good day to you :)

"Not longer the same" from what? Where is your point zero to start from? Bitcoin nodes who never implemented the temporary spam limit can still run today with no problems at all. The consensus rules you talk dont' exist for many people.

This is only because core decided to make blocksize a concensus rule when it never was supposed to be. It was a temporary spam measure to be removed. BU miners are working off what they understand to be two consistent consensus rule chains.

Wow. It is really sad how weak your arguments have gotten as the level of your desperation goes up. Nakamoto consensus is as much about the ledger itself as it is about the protocol used to construct it. Just accept that you are wrong about this.

This is taking Satoshi out of context in a dishonest way. He was talking about an attacker changing the content of the ledger itself, not a majority of miners agreeing to upgrade the protocol, and you know it. Shame.

As I said below the fact that the "economic majority" could recycle the pre-attack ledger in a spinoff coin with a different PoW scheme is irrelevant.

The fact of the matter is in today's terms you need a majority of hashpower and at least a certain number of nodes to carry out a 51% attack whether you want to just spend money that you don't own or mess with the parameters of the protocol. The distinction between these two things in this context is meaningless.

Maybe, maybe not, but either way that is irrelevant and is not what keeps miners in check.

The more important incentive is not that some magical omnipotent economic majority will reject those blocks, rather that doing so would destroy people's faith in the limited supply, Bitcoin's value will crash, and the 51% miner will have just destroyed their investment in mining hardware.

Self interest of the miner earning more by being "honest" is what prevents them from inflating how they like.

As would also be the case for an arbitrary spend transaction. IIRC the whitepaper assumes a 51% attacker would also have a majority of nodes, since in Satoshi's day all nodes were also miners, so your point is moot.

Let me put this more simply for you: in today's world, a 51% attacker would deploy as many nodes as they need to carry out the attack and confuse the network since it is economically trivial to conduct such a Sybil attack next to the cost of acquiring 51% of the hash power. You would need to do exactly the same thing to double spend transactions, since the nodes also check for that information. Thus, it follows that a 51% attacker would have the option of issuing arbitrary blocks, including arbitrary spend transactions and arbitrary block rewards.

The fact that the "economic majority" could recycle the pre-attack ledger in a spinoff coin with a different PoW scheme is irrelevant to this particular subject.

Let me put this more simply for you: in today's world, a 51% attacker would deploy as many nodes as they need to carry out the attack and confuse the network since it is economically trivial to conduct such a Sybil attack next to the cost of acquiring 51% of the hash power.

A few amazon hosted full node instances don't help you here. You need very specific full nodes to play along, namely those of real exchanges, merchants and users. They still validate properly and won't accept anything invalid from you until you convince them to change their software. Good luck with that!

Satoshi himself proposed a hard fork to increase the block size, you think he was on drugs when he said that or what?

Satoshi was responding to someone who created a patch to increase the blocksize. Satoshi said:

Don't use this patch, it'll make you incompatible with the network, to your own detriment. We can phase in a change later if we get closer to needing it.

Then Satoshi went on to describe how a blocksize increase could be done in a safer way. That is all the current developers are saying now, "don't use [BU/XT/Classic], it'll make you incompatible with the network", instead let's hardfork in a safer way.

Satoshi's example included a c10 month grace period. Had Bitcoin Classic included a reasonable 10 month grace period rather than 28 days and some other reasonable safety mechanics, I am sure the community would have accepted Bitcoin Classic.

Please can we end the campaigns to hardfork in a potentially unsafe way and instead unite behind plans to hardfork in a safe and collaborative way. Unless anyone has any disadvantage of making a hardfork safer, this seems like a no brainer to me. Otherwise it's looks like we may get nowhere and be stuck with a small 1MB limit.

such as creating value out of thin air or taking money that never belonged to the attacker

Anyway, the 1 MB limit was added at some point without people crying about it fundamentally changing what Bitcoin was, so surely its removal should be a similar non-event. Unless you do consider the 1 MB limit addition a fundamental, important change, in which case Bitcoin was already co-opted in the past and we here are valiant fighters reverting this arbitrary change, this attack, and returning Bitcoin to the original vision.

/r/btc was created to foster and support free and open Bitcoin discussion, Bitcoin news, and exclusive AMA (Ask Me Anything) interviews from top Bitcoin industry leaders! Bitcoin is the currency of the Internet. A distributed, worldwide, decentralized digital money. Unlike traditional currencies such as dollars, bitcoins are issued and managed without the need for any central authority whatsoever.